“How the arms industry is hijacking Europe’s defence policy”: a new report from Vredesactie documents the symbiotic relationship between the arms industry and the EU institutions.

40 billion euros. That’s how much the European Union wants to spend on the research and development of new weapons during the next 10 years.
The establishment of the European Defence Fund is an unprecedented acceleration in the militarization of the EU and only serves one purpose: sustaining the competitiveness of the arms industry.
The question of which weapons should be developed and if they are actually needed is not even asked.
The decision making process was heavily dominated by corporate interests. Neither civil society nor the European Parliament were given any substantial input on these far reaching decisions.

Based on disclosed EU documents, Vredesctie shows how the arms industry had access to every stage of the decision making process, from setting the agenda to drawing up the modalities of the military research programmes. It documents the symbiotic relationship between the arms industry and the EU institutions and the effect of this relationship on the creation of a European Defence Fund.